Unexplained

Michael Cleary said his wife was really a spirit

There were forts scattered across the whole of Ireland. Some were made of stone. Others no more than piles of earth.

They were the entrances to another world inhabited by fairies, somewhere between the living and dead. A world no man or woman could enter.

Sometimes at night, the fairies would leave their forts.

They’d torment rural communities, pull down fences and walls, scream at people’s windows, steal their money, drink their milk.

And, in March 1895, the fairies kidnapped Bridget Cleary.

Or so her husband Michael believed.

The couple lived in a labourer’s cottage in Ballyvadlea, a remote village in Tipperary.

Built by the local authority on a half-acre of land, the Clearys paid a nominal rent for it.

It was said to be the best home in the village. Spacious, airy. But no-one dared live there.

Because it had been built on a fairy fort.

People living in rural, Irish communities had feared the fairies for generations.

They wouldn’t approach or disturb the fairy forts. Or there’d be reprisals. Fairies, it was said, enjoyed revenge. They’d strike down anyone who came too close with rheumatism, paralysis… even death.

For Bridget and Michael, though, it was just superstition.

They moved into the house. Got on with their lives.

Michael worked as a cooper, making barrels for breweries. Bridget was a seamstress, and sold eggs for extra money.

The Clearys were doing well for themselves. Then, Bridget disappeared. For the next week, police and locals searched for her...

But Michael said he knew where she’d gone. The fairies had taken her. Days later, on 22 March 1895, Bridget’s body was found in a shallow grave near their home.

She was naked, but for a pair of stockings. Her knees were tucked up under her chin, her arms folded across her chest.

Around her neck were purple bruises from strangulation.

And along her back, parts of her spine were exposed where her flesh and muscle had been burned away by fire. Michael Cleary was arrested. Straightaway, he admitted killing the woman. Or the being... Because, he said, it wasn’t Bridget. It was a fairy.

He claimed the fairies had taken Bridget, then replaced her with one of their own – made to look exactly like her.

There were stories of fairies

taking on the form of women, butterflies, hawks and salmon.

‘She was not my wife,’ Michael said. ‘She was two inches taller.’

Her personality was different, too. She’d started teasing him, joking around. Very unlike Bridget.

She’d started hiding coins. A typical fairy trait. And drinking the fairies’ favourite – milk.

So, to expel the fairy, Michael had beaten her, poured buckets of his urine over her, and held her in their fireplace until the skin on her back melted.

Though charged with murder, Michael insisted that, when ready, the fairies would send Bridget back.

But the judge wasn’t convinced.

There’d been rumours Bridget was seeing the man she sold her eggs to for market.

Rather than being spirited away by fairies, wasn’t it more likely Michael had killed her in a jealous, angry rage? Yet many villagers disagreed. The Cleary’s neighbours, Michael’s colleagues, even Bridget’s father, believed she’d been taken by the fairies.

And they’d all been there when Michael had tried to expel the fairy from his wife. All participated in her death. Ten people in total held Bridget down while Michael beat her. Added their own urine to Michael’s bucket.

They’d shut their ears to Bridget’s desperate cries, and helped dig her shallow grave.

Perhaps Bridget really was kidnapped by the fairies. The people of Ballyvadlea had done what they could to protect themselves.

Or perhaps Michael Cleary somehow convinced them because he wanted rid of his wife.

Four were convicted of wounding, and jailed. The others were let off. As for Michael Cleary, no-one could prove he’d murdered his wife, so he was found guilty of manslaughter instead. He spent 15 years in prison, then moved to Liverpool.

If the fairies did kidnap Bridget, they still haven’t returned her.

Everyone knows what happened to Bridget Cleary. She was beaten, strangled and burned to death.

But no-one knows why.

Michael had held her in the fireplace until her skin had melted